196

selves a great amount of psychic pain, but in the unconscious
the suppressed wish still exists, only waiting for its chance to
become active and finally succeeds in sending into conscious-
ness, instead of the repressed idea, a disguised and unrecog-
nizable surrogate-creation (Ersatzbildung), to which the same
painful sensations associate themselves that the patient
thought he was rid of through his repression. This surro-
gate of the suppressed idea—the symptom—is secure against
further attacks from the defences of the ego, and instead of a
short conflict there originates now a permanent suffering. We
can observe in the symptom, besides the tokens of its dis-
guise, a remnant of traceable similarity with the originally
repressed idea; the way in which the surrogate is built up can
be discovered during the psychoanalytic treatment of the
patient, and for his cure the symptom must be traced back
over the same route to the repressed idea. If this repressed
material is once more made part of the conscious mental
functions—a process which supposes the overcoming of con-
siderable resistance—the psychic conflict which then arises,
the same which the patient wished to avoid, is made capable
of a happier termination, under the guidance of the physician,
than is offered by repression. There are several possible
suitable decisions which can bring conflict and neurosis to a
happy end; in particular cases the attempt may be made to
combine several of these. Either the personality of the patient
may be convinced that he has been wrong in rejecting the
pathogenic wish, and he may be made to accept it either
wholly or in part; or this wish may itself be directed to a
higher goal which is free from objection, by what is called
sublimation (Sublimierung); or the rejection may be recog-
nized as rightly motivated, and the automatic and therefore in-
sufficient mechanism of repression be reinforced by the higher,
more characteristically human mental faculties: one succeeds
in mastering his wishes by conscious thought.

Forgive me if I have not been able to present more clearly
these main points of the treatment which is to-day known as
“psychoanalysis.” The difficulties do not lie merely in the
newness of the subject.

Regarding the nature of the unacceptable wishes, which
succeed in making their influence felt out of the uncon-
scious, in spite of repression; and regarding the question of
what subjective and constitutional factors must be present for
such a failure of repression and such a surrogate or symptom
creation to take place, we will speak in later remarks.

THIRD LECTURE

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is not always easy to tell the

197

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

truth, especially when one must be brief, and so to-
correct an incorrect statement that I made in my last lecture.

I told you how when I gave up using hypnosis I pressed my
patients to tell me what came into their minds that had to do
with the problem we were working on. I told them that they
would remember what they had apparently forgotten, and that
the thought which irrupted into consciousness (Einfall) would
surely embody the memory for which we were seeking. I
claimed that I substantiated the fact that the first idea of my
patients brought the right clue and could be shown to be the
forgotten continuation of the memory. Now this is not always
so; I represented it as being so simple only for purposes of
abbreviation. In fact, it would only happen the first times
that the right forgotten material would emerge through simple
pressure on my part. If the experience was continued, ideas
emerged in every case which could not be the right ones, for
they were not to the purpose, and the patients themselves
rejected them as incorrect. Pressure was of no further service
here, and one could only regret again having given up hyp-
nosis. In this state of perplexity I clung to a prejudice which
years later was proved by my friend C. G. Jung of the Univer-
sity of Zürich, and his pupils to have a scientific justification.
I must confess that it is often of great advantage to have pre-
judices. I put a high value on the strength of the deter-
mination of mental processes, and I could not believe that any
idea which occurred to the patient, which originated in a state
of concentrated attention, could be quite arbitrary and out of
all relation to the forgotten idea that we were seeking. That
it was not identical with the latter, could be satisfactorily ex-
plained by the hypothetical psychological situation. In the
patients whom I treated there were two opposing forces: on the
one hand the conscious striving to drag up into consciousness
the forgotten experience which was present in the unconscious;
and on the other hand the resistance which we have seen, which
set itself against the emergence of the suppressed idea or its
associates into consciousness. In case this resistance was non-
existent or very slight, the forgotten material could become
conscious without disguise (Enstellung). It was then a natural
supposition that the disguise would be the more complete, the
greater the resistance to the emergence of the idea. Thoughts
which broke into the patient’s consciousness instead of the ideas
sought for, were accordingly made up just like symptoms; they
were new, artificial, ephemeral surrogates for the repressed
ideas, and differed from these just in proportion as they had
been more completely disguised under the influence of the
resistances. These surrogates must, however, show a certain
similarity with the ideas which are the object of our search, by
JOURNAL—2

198

FREUD

virtue of their nature as symptoms; and when the resistance is
not too intensive it is possible from the nature of these irrup-
tions to discover the hidden object of our search. This must
be related to the repressed thought as a sort of allusion, as a
statement of the same thing in indirect terms.

We know cases in normal psychology in which analogous
situations to the one which we have assumed give rise to sim-
ilar experiences. Such a case is that of wit. By my study of
psychoanalytic technique I was necessarily led to a consid-
eration of the problem of the nature of wit. I will give one
example of this sort, which, too, is a story that originally
appeared in English.

The anecdote runs: ¹Two unscrupulous business men had
succeeded by fortunate speculations in accumulating a large
fortune, and then directed their efforts to breaking into good
society. Among other means they thought it would be of ad-
vantage to be painted by the most famous and expensive artist
of the city, a man whose paintings were considered as events.
The costly paintings were first shown at a great soirée and both
hosts led the most influential connoisseur and art critic to the
wall of the salon on which the portraits were hung, to elicit his
admiring judgment. The artist looked for a long time, looked
about as though in search of something, and then merely
asked, pointing out the vacant space between the two pictures;
“And where is the Saviour?”

I see that you are all laughing over this good example of
wit, which we will now attempt to analyse. We understand
that the critic means to say; “You are a couple of malefactors,
like those between whom the Saviour was crucified.” But he
does not say this, he expresses himself instead in a way that at
first seems not to the purpose and not related to the matter in
hand, but which at the next moment we recognize as an
allusion to the insult at which he aims, and as a perfect sur-
rogate for it. We cannot expect to find in the case of wit all
those relations that our theory supposes for the origin of the
irruptive ideas of our patients, but it is my desire to lay stress
on the similar motivation of wit and irruptive idea. Why does
not the critic say directly what he has to say to the two rogues?
Because, in addition to his desire to say it straight out, he is
actuated by strong opposite motives. It is a proceeding which
is liable to be dangerous to offend people who are one’s hosts,
and who can call to their aid the strong arms of numerous
servants. One might easily suffer the same fate that I used in
the previous lecture to illustrate repression. On this ground,

¹Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten. Deuticke,
Vienna, 1905, p. 59.

199

the critic does not express the particular insult directly, but in
a disguised form, as an allusion with omission. The same
constellation comes into play, according to our hypothesis,
when our patient produces the irruptive idea as a surrogate for
the forgotten idea which is the object of the quest.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is very useful to designate a group
of ideas which belong together and have a common emotive
tone, according to the custom of the Zürich school (Bleuler,
Jung and others), as a “complex.” So we can say that if we
set out from the last memories of the patient to look for a re-
pressed complex, that we have every prospect of discovering it,
if only the patient will communicate to us a sufficient number
of the ideas which come into his head. So we let the patient
speak along any line that he desires, and cling to the hypothe-
sis that nothing can occur to him except what has some in-
direct bearing on the complex that we are seeking. If this
method of discovering the repressed complexes seems too cir-
cumstantial, I can at least assure you that it is the only avail-
able one.

In practicing this technique, one is further bothered by the
fact that the patient often stops, is at a stand-still, and con-
siders that he has nothing to say; nothing occurs to him. If
this were really the case and the patient were right, our pro-
cedure would again be proven inapplicable. Closer observation
shows that such an absence of ideas never really occurs, and
that it only appears to when the patient holds back or rejects
the idea which he perceives, under the influence of the resist-
ance, which disguises itself as critical judgment of the value of
the idea. The patient can be protected from this if he is warned
in advance of this circumstance, and told to take no account of
the critical attitude. He must say anything that comes into
his mind, fully laying aside such critical choice, even though
he may think it unessential, irrelevant, nonsensical, especially
when the idea is one which is unpleasant to dwell on. By fol-
lowing this prescription we secure the material which sets us
on the track of the repressed complex.

These irruptive ideas, which the patient himself values little,
if he is under the influence of the resistance and not that of the
physician, are for the psychologist like the ore, which by sim-
ple methods of interpretation he reduces from its crude state to
valuable metal. If one desires to gain in a short time a pre-
liminary knowledge of the patient’s repressed complexes,
without going into the question of their arrangement and asso-
ciations, this examination may be conducted with the help of
the association experiments, as Jung¹⁾ and his pupils have per-
 

¹⁾C. G. Jung: Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien, B. I, 1906.

200

fected them. This procedure is to the psychologist what
qualitative analysis is to the chemist; it may be dispensed with
in the therapy of neurotic patients, but is indispensable in
the investigations of the psychoses, which have been begun by
the Zürich school with such valuable results.

This method of work with whatever comes into the patient’s
head when he submits to psychoanalytic treatment, is not the
only technical means at our disposal for the widening of con-
sciousness. Two other methods of procedure serve the same
purpose, the interpretation of his dreams and the evaluation of
acts which he bungles or does without intending to (Fehl- und
Zufallshandlungen).

I might say, esteemed hearers, that for a long time I hesi-
tated whether instead of this hurried survey of the whole field
of psychoanalysis, I should not rather offer you a thorough
consideration of the analysis of dreams; a purely subjective
and apparently secondary motive decided me against this. It
seemed rather an impropriety that in this country, so devoted
to practical pursuits, I should pose as “interpreter of dreams,”
before you had a chance to discover what significance the old
and despised art can claim.

Interpretation of dreams is in fact the via regia to the inter-
pretation of the unconscious, the surest ground of psycho-
analysis and a field in which every worker must win his
convictions and gain his education. If I were asked how one
could become a psychoanalyst, I should answer, through the
study of his own dreams. With great tact all opponents of
the psychoanalytic theory have so far either evaded any criti-
cism of the “Traumdeutung”¹⁾ or have attempted to pass over it
with the most superficial objections. If, on the contrary, you
will undertake the solution of the problems of dream life, the
novelties which psychoanalysis present to your thoughts will
no longer be difficulties.

You must remember that our nightly dream productions
show the greatest outer similarity and inner relationship to
the creations of the insane, but on the other hand are com-
patible with full health during waking life. It does not sound
at all absurd to say that whoever regards these normal sense
illusions, these delusions and alterations of character as mat-
ter for amazement instead of understanding, has not the least
prospect of understanding the abnormal creations of diseased
mental states in any other than the lay sense. You may with
confidence place in this lay group all the psychiatrists of to-
day. Follow me now on a brief excursion through the field
of dream problems.

¹⁾Die Traumdeutung: 2d edition. Deuticke, Vienna, 1909.

201

In our waking state we usually treat dreams with as little
consideration as the patient treats the irruptive ideas which the
psychoanalyst demands from him. It is evident that we re-
ject them, for we forget them quickly and completely. The
slight valuation which we place on them is based, with those
dreams that are not confused and nonsensical, on the feeling
that they are foreign to our personality, and, with other
dreams, on their evident absurdity and uselessness. Our
rejection derives support from the unrestrained shamelessness
and the immoral longings which are obvious in many dreams.
Antiquity, as we know, did not share this light valuation of
dreams. The lower classes of our people to-
day stick close to
the value which they set on dreams; they, however, expect
from them, as did the ancients, the revelation of the future. I
confess that I see no need to adopt mystical hypotheses to fill
out the gaps in our present knowledge, and so I have never
been able to find anything that supported the hypothesis of
the prophetic nature of dreams. Many other things, which
are wonderful enough, can be said about them.

And first, not all dreams are so foreign to the character of
the dreamer, are incomprehensible and confused. If you will
undertake to consider the dreams of young children from the
age of a year and a half on, you will find them quite simple
and easy to interpret. The young child always dreams of the
fulfillment of wishes which were aroused in him the day be-
fore and were not satisfied. You need no art of interpretation
to discover this simple solution, you only need to inquire into
the experiences of the child on the day before (the “dream
day”). Now it would certainly be a most satisfactory solu-
tion of the dream-
riddle, if the dreams of adults, too, were the
same as those of children, fulfillments of wishes which had
been aroused in them during the dream day. This is actually
the fact; the difficulties which stand in the way of this solu-
tion can be removed step by step by a thorough analysis of the
dream.

There is, first, of all, the most weighty objection, that the
dreams of adults generally have an incomprehensible content,
which shows wish-
fulfillment least of anything. The answer
is this: these dreams have undergone a process of disguise,
the psychic content which underlies them was originally meant
for quite different verbal expression. You must differentiate
between the manifest dream-
content, which we remember in the
morning only confusedly, and with difficulty clothe in words
which seem arbitrary, and the latent dream-
thoughts, whose
presence in the unconscious we must assume. This distortion
of the dream (Traumentstellung) is the same process which
has been revealed to you in the investigations of the creations

202

(symptoms) of hysterical subjects; it points to the fact that the
same opposition of psychic forces has its share in the creation
of dreams as in the creation of symptoms.
The manifest dream-content is the disguised surrogate for
the unconscious dream thoughts, and this disguising is the
work of the defensive forces of the ego, of the resistances.
These prevent the repressed wishes from entering conscious
ness during the waking life, and even in the relaxation of
sleep they are still strong enough to force them to hide them
selves by a sort of masquerading. The dreamer, then, knows
just as little the sense of his dream as the hysterical knows
the relation and significance of his symptoms. That there are
latent dream-thoughts and that between them and the mani-
fest dream-content there exists the relation just described—of
this you may convince yourselves by the analysis of dreams, a
procedure the technique of which is exactly that of psycho-
analysis. You must abstract entirely from the apparent con-
nection of the elements in the manifest dream and seek for the
irruptive ideas which arise through free association, according
to the psychoanalytic laws, from each separate dream element.
From this material the latent dream thoughts may be discov-
ered, exactly as one divines the concealed complexes of the
patient from the fancies connected with his symptoms and
memories. From the latent dream thoughts which you will
find in this way, you will see at once how thoroughly justified
one is in interpreting the dreams of adults by the same rubrics
as those of children. What is now substituted for the mani-
fest dream-content is the real sense of the dream, is always
clearly comprehensible, associated with the impressions of the
day before, and appears as the fulfilling of an unsatisfied wish.
The manifest dream, which we remember after waking, may
then be described as a disguised fulfillment of repressed wishes.
It is also possible by a sort of synthesis to get some insight
into the process which has brought about the disguise of the
unconscious dream thoughts as the manifest dream-content.
We call this process a dream-work'' (Traumarbeit). This de-
serves our fullest theoretical interest, since here as nowhere
else we can study the unsuspected psychic processes which are
existent in the unconscious, or, to express it more exactly,
between two such separate systems as the conscious and the
unconscious. Among these newly discovered psychic pro-
cesses, two, condensation (Verdichtung) and displacement or
transvaluation, change of psychic accent (Verschiebung), stand
out most prominently. Dream work is a special case of the
reaction of different mental groupings on each other, and as
such is the consequence of psychic fission. In all essential
points it seems identical with the work of disguise, which

203

changes the repressed complex in the case of failing repression
into symptoms.

You will furthermore discover by the analysis of dreams,
most convincingly your own, the unsuspected importance of
the rôle which impressions and experiences from early child-
hood exert on the development of men. In the dream life the
child, as it were, continues his existence in the man, with a
retention of all his traits and wishes, including those which
he was obliged to allow to fall into disuse in his later years.
With irresistible might it will be impressed on you by what
processes of development, of repression, sublimation and reac-
tion there arises out of the child, with its peculiar gifts and
tendencies, the so-called normal man, the bearer and partly
the victim of our painfully acquired civilization. I will also
direct your attention to the fact that we have discovered
from the analysis of dreams that the unconscious makes use of
a sort of symbolism, especially in the presentation of sexual
complexes. This symbolism in part varies with the indi-
vidual, but in part is of a typical nature, and seems to be
identical with the symbolism which we suppose to lie behind
our myths and legends. It is not impossible that these latter
creations of the people may find their explanation from the
study of dreams.

Finally, I must remind you that you must not be led astray
by the objection that the occurrence of anxiety-dreams (Angst-
träume), contradicts our idea of the dream as a wish-ful-
fillment. Apart from the consideration that anxiety-dreams
also require interpretation before judgment can be passed on
them, one can say quite generally that the anxiety does not
depend in such a simple way on the dream content as one
might suppose without more knowledge of the facts, and more
attention to the conditions of neurotic anxiety. Anxiety is
one of the ways in which the ego relieves itself of repressed
wishes which have become too strong, and so is easy to explain
in the dream, if the dream has gone too far towards the fulfill-
ing of the objectionable wish.

You see that the investigation of dreams was justified by the
conclusions which it has given us concerning things otherwise
hard to understand. But we came to it in connection with the
psychoanalytic treatment of neurotics. From what has been
said you can easily understand how the interpretation of dreams,
if it is not made too difficult by the resistance of the patient,
can lead to a knowledge of the patient’s concealed and repressed
wishes and the complexes which he is nourishing. I may now
pass to that group of everyday mental phenomena whose study
has become a technical help for psychoanalysis.

These are the bungling of acts (Fehlhandlungen) among

204

normal men as well as among neurotics, to which no significance
is ordinarily attached; the forgetting of things which one is
supposed to know and at other times really does know (for ex-
ample the temporary forgetting of proper names); mistakes in
speaking (Versprechen), which occur so fre-
quently; analogous mistakes in writing (Verschreiben) and in reading (Verlesen),
the automatic execution of purposive acts in wrong situations
(Vergreifen), and the loss or breaking of objects, etc. These
are trifles, for which no one has ever sought a psychological
determination, which have passed unchallenged as chance ex-
periences, as consequences of absent-mindedness, inattention
and similar conditions. Here, too, are included the acts and
gestures executed without being noticed by the subject, to say
nothing of the fact that he attaches no psychic importance to
them; as playing and trifling with objects, humming melodies,
handling one’s person and clothing and the like.¹⁾

These little things, the bungling of acts, like the symp-
tomatic and chance acts (Symptom- und Zufallshandlungen) are
not so entirely without meaning as is generally supposed by a
sort of tacit agreement. They have a meaning, generally easy
and sure to interpret from the situation in which they occur,
and it can be demonstrated that they either express impulses
and purposes which are repressed, hidden if possible from the
consciousness of the individual, or that they spring from ex-
actly the same sort of repressed wishes and complexes which
we have learned to know already as the creators of symptoms
and dreams.

It follows that they deserve the rank of symptoms, and their
observation, like that of dreams, can lead to the discovery of
the hidden complexes of the psychic life. With their help one
will usually betray the most intimate of his secrets. If these
occur so easily and commonly among people in health, with
whom repression has on the whole succeeded fairly well, this is
due to their insignificance and their inconspicuous nature.
But they can lay claim to high theoretic value, for they prove
the existence of repression and surrogate creations even under
the conditions of health. You have already noticed that the
psychoanalyst is distinguished by an especially strong belief in
the determination of the psychic life. For him there is in the
expressions of the psyche nothing trifling, nothing arbitrary
and lawless, he expects everywhere a widespread motivation,
where customarily such claims are not made; more than that,
he is even prepared to find a manifold motivation of these

¹⁾Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens. 3d edition, 1910. S.
Kargar, Berlin.

205

psychic expressions, while our supposedly inborn causal need is
satisfied with a single psychic cause.

Now keeping in mind the means which we possess for the
discovery of the hidden, forgotten, repressed things in the soul
life; the study of the irruptive ideas called up by free associa-
tion, the patient’s dreams, and his bungled and symptomatic
acts; and adding to these the evaluation of other phenomena
which emerge during the psychoanalytic treatment, on which
I shall later make a few remarks under the heading of “trans-
fer” (Uebertragung), you will come with me to the conclusion
that our technique is already sufficiently efficacious for the
solution of the problem of how to introduce the pathogenic
psychic material into consciousness, and so to do away with
the suffering brought on by the creation of surrogate symp-
toms.

The fact that by such therapeutic endeavors our knowledge
of the mental life of the normal and the abnormal is widened
and deepened, can of course only be regarded as an especial
attraction and superiority of this method.

I do not know whether you have gained the impression that
the technique through whose arsenal I have led you is a pecu-
liarly difficult one. I consider that on the contrary, for one
who has mastered it, it is quite adapted for use. But so much
is sure, that it is not obvious, that it must be learned no less
than the histological or the surgical technique.

You may be surprised to learn that in Europe we have heard
very frequently judgments passed on psychoanalysis by persons
who knew nothing of its technique and had never practised it,
but who demanded scornfully that we show the correctness of
our results. There are among these people some who are not
in other things unacquainted with scientific methods of thought,
who for example would not reject the result of microscopical
research because it cannot be confirmed with the naked eye in
anatomical preparations, and who would not pass judgment
until they had used the microscope. But in matters of psy-
choanalysis circumstances are really more unfavorable for
gaining recognition. Psychoanalysis will bring the repressed
in mental life to conscious acknowledgment, and every one
who judges it is himself a man who has such repressions, per-
haps only maintained with difficulty. It will consequently
call forth the same resistances from him as from the patient,
and this resistance can easily succeed in disguising itself as in-
tellectual rejection, and bring forward arguments similar to
those from which we protect our patients by the basic principles
of psychoanalysis. It is not difficult to substantiate in our
opponents the same impairment of intelligence produced by
emotivity which we may observe every day with our patients.

206

The arrogance of consciousness which for example rejects
dreams so lightly, belongs—quite generally—to the strongest
protective apparatus which guards us against the breaking
through of the unconscious complexes, and as a result it is hard
to convince people of the reality of the unconscious, and to
teach them anew, what their conscious knowledge contra-
dicts.

FOURTH LECTURE

Ladies and Gentlemen: At this point you will be asking
what the technique which I have described has taught us of
the nature of the pathogenic complexes and repressed wishes
of neurotics.

One thing in particular: psychoanalytic investigations trace
back the symptoms of disease with really surprising regularity
to impressions from the sexual life, show us that the pathogenic
wishes are of the nature of erotic impulse-components (Trieb-
komponente), and necessitate the assumption that to disturb-
ances of the erotic sphere must be ascribed the greatest
significance among the etiological factors of the disease. This
holds of both sexes.

I know that this assertion will not willingly be credited.
Even those investigators who gladly follow my psychological
labors, are inclined to think that I overestimate the etiological
share of the sexual moments. They ask me why other mental
excitations should not lead to the phenomena of repression
and surrogate-creation which I have described. I can give
them this answer; that I do not know why they should not
do this, I have no objection to their doing it, but experience
shows that they do not possess such a significance, and that
they merely support the effect of the sexual moments, without
being able to supplant them. This conclusion was not a theo-
retical postulate; in the Studien über Hysterie, published in
1895 with Dr. Breuer, I did not stand on this ground. I was
converted to it when my experience was richer and had led me
deeper into the nature of the case. Gentlemen, there are
among you some of my closest friends and adherents, who
have travelled to Worcester with me. Ask them, and they
will tell you that they all were at first completely sceptical of
the assertion of the determinative significance of the sexual
etiology, until they were compelled by their own analytic
labors to come to the same conclusion.

The conduct of the patients does not make it any easier to
convince one’s self of the correctness of the view which I have
expressed. Instead of willingly giving us information con-
cerning their sexual life, they try to conceal it by every means
in their power. Men generally are not candid in sexual mat-
ters.